When ASIC's come out and buying a GPU now....

[Evolvex]

So, I'm very new to this whole bitcoin thing - pretty amazed that I havent come across it sooner, its such a revolutionly thing, the whole cryptocurrency thing, not just bitcoin.

And the blockchain... well thats a whole other thing the way I see it.

Anyway, so I ordered a butterfly labs SC single thingy on pre-order, the way I see it, its not going to be worth me buying a new GPU (I have an Nvidia card atm so I'm only getting 44m/h ) in the meantime waiting for the BFL ASIC to come. So tempted to just get something around the £150 mark to do a bit of mining whilst I wait, not thinking so much about the profitibility aspect yet if I got a better GPU.... more of a computer upgrade?

What you guys think of the way I'm jusifying it to myself, as a computer upgrade? Surely I've got a couple of months to use it and get a few bitcoins before the BFL ASIC is delivered & the hashrate of the network shoots up and the reward drops in Dec? Or will I just be spending money for spending money sake? I heard the ATI's arent as good as the Nvidia for games (I only play games every now and then), something to do with pixel shaders?

Anyhow, its good to have yet another "hobby" to spend time on (my mrs loves the fact I've spent the last 3 weeks obssessing over bitcoins!)

[racerguy]

Sell your nvidia and replace it with a similar spec'd amd card, should get some profit from gpumining that way.  Some people say they have driver problems with ati cards and gaming, never had those problems myself but the games I play are over 4 years old so maybe that's it?

[Jutarul]

So, I'm very new to this whole bitcoin thing - pretty amazed that I havent come across it sooner, its such a revolutionly thing, the whole cryptocurrency thing, not just bitcoin.

And the blockchain... well thats a whole other thing the way I see it.

Anyway, so I ordered a butterfly labs SC single thingy on pre-order, the way I see it, its not going to be worth me buying a new GPU (I have an Nvidia card atm so I'm only getting 44m/h ) in the meantime waiting for the BFL ASIC to come. So tempted to just get something around the £150 mark to do a bit of mining whilst I wait, not thinking so much about the profitibility aspect yet if I got a better GPU.... more of a computer upgrade?

What you guys think of the way I'm jusifying it to myself, as a computer upgrade? Surely I've got a couple of months to use it and get a few bitcoins before the BFL ASIC is delivered & the hashrate of the network shoots up and the reward drops in Dec? Or will I just be spending money for spending money sake? I heard the ATI's arent as good as the Nvidia for games (I only play games every now and then), something to do with pixel shaders?

Anyhow, its good to have yet another "hobby" to spend time on (my mrs loves the fact I've spent the last 3 weeks obssessing over bitcoins!)

You know an aweful lot about mining and difficulty for someone who uses a NVIDIA card...

[ninjaboon]

So, I'm very new to this whole bitcoin thing - pretty amazed that I havent come across it sooner, its such a revolutionly thing, the whole cryptocurrency thing, not just bitcoin.

And the blockchain... well thats a whole other thing the way I see it.

Anyway, so I ordered a butterfly labs SC single thingy on pre-order, the way I see it, its not going to be worth me buying a new GPU (I have an Nvidia card atm so I'm only getting 44m/h ) in the meantime waiting for the BFL ASIC to come. So tempted to just get something around the £150 mark to do a bit of mining whilst I wait, not thinking so much about the profitibility aspect yet if I got a better GPU.... more of a computer upgrade?

What you guys think of the way I'm jusifying it to myself, as a computer upgrade? Surely I've got a couple of months to use it and get a few bitcoins before the BFL ASIC is delivered & the hashrate of the network shoots up and the reward drops in Dec? Or will I just be spending money for spending money sake? I heard the ATI's arent as good as the Nvidia for games (I only play games every now and then), something to do with pixel shaders?

Anyhow, its good to have yet another "hobby" to spend time on (my mrs loves the fact I've spent the last 3 weeks obssessing over bitcoins!)

I've order a Single SC too and you might want to checkout the Wiki if you plan to buy some GPUs : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

[Evolvex]

So, I'm very new to this whole bitcoin thing - pretty amazed that I havent come across it sooner, its such a revolutionly thing, the whole cryptocurrency thing, not just bitcoin.

And the blockchain... well thats a whole other thing the way I see it.

Anyway, so I ordered a butterfly labs SC single thingy on pre-order, the way I see it, its not going to be worth me buying a new GPU (I have an Nvidia card atm so I'm only getting 44m/h ) in the meantime waiting for the BFL ASIC to come. So tempted to just get something around the £150 mark to do a bit of mining whilst I wait, not thinking so much about the profitibility aspect yet if I got a better GPU.... more of a computer upgrade?

What you guys think of the way I'm jusifying it to myself, as a computer upgrade? Surely I've got a couple of months to use it and get a few bitcoins before the BFL ASIC is delivered & the hashrate of the network shoots up and the reward drops in Dec? Or will I just be spending money for spending money sake? I heard the ATI's arent as good as the Nvidia for games (I only play games every now and then), something to do with pixel shaders?

Anyhow, its good to have yet another "hobby" to spend time on (my mrs loves the fact I've spent the last 3 weeks obssessing over bitcoins!)

You know an aweful lot about mining and difficulty for someone who uses a NVIDIA card...

Not quite sure what you mean by that dude? I know an aweful lot about a lot of things, like, I know Nivida cards are shit for mining

[Jutarul]

Not quite sure what you mean by that dude? I know an aweful lot about a lot of things, like, I know Nivida cards are shit for mining

You know that you actually loose money by mining with a NVIDIA card? And if you're not paying the electricity bill, someone else does...

[Jutarul]

Anyway - to answer your original question:

In the end mining is a subsistence business. If you want to make profit with mining you need to have a competitive advantage. E.g. spare power not used by anyone or access to special hardware. Right now most people make profit by riding the "technology curve", i.e. get the most efficient hardware, use it and dump it. Rinse and repeat. That works until you hit technological limits. But we're not there yet.

Ordering a BFL right now puts you at the end of a very long line. And I doubt they can stamp out enough to meet a fraction of the demand. But there are other players in the market soon, which also provide options for micro investments: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.0

[libertyzeal]

If losing money is of great concern, then don't mine, this is a speculative activity.  Personally, I do it because it's fun. I'm a big economics/monetary theory nerd.  I also write software for a living, and bitcoin is probably the most profound use of technology/software in decades.

So my answer to you: if you think bitcoin is cool and you have fun mining and can afford the hardware, then go for it.  If you're in this purely for profit, well, i really have no advice for you.  Just know this isn't a guaranteed path to riches.

[Ascholten]

a lot of assumptions here.  People act like they KNOW the price of electricity world wide and it's all the same.   People act like they have a crystal ball and know what the value of a bit coin is going to be a year from now.

What if I live in a place where electricity is only 6 cent a kw/h  yes there are places like that... the nvidia is profitable then.
what if the bit coin is worth 20 bucks in the future,  the nvidia is profitable then.   

what happens when the bitcoin drops to about 4 bucks each... your  ATI is not making profit anymore then huh?  or if your electricity is 30 cents / kw h..... there are places like that too.  again kiss profits goodbye.

we still don't know what the asic will do to the market?  Will it make the first few people in the door with them into bit coin tycoons and the rest of us on bit welfare?

Have fun at it Id say, and if you are looking for purely profit, your world may change quickly and it takes money to make money.  The game might change here very soon too.

I just love these people who throw around these absolutes like they are the absolute and only source of knowledge on the topic.
Go ahead curse me out if it makes you feel better about yourself.

Aaron

[Jutarul]

what if the bit coin is worth 20 bucks in the future,  the nvidia is profitable then.   

you might as well buy the bitcoins with that money if you think like that.
they only way to justify hashrate vs. electricity cost is to look at the CURRENT bitcoin price. Anything else incorporates speculation.

or if your electricity is 30 cents / kw h..... there are places like that too.  again kiss profits goodbye.

exactly. That's what defines competitive (dis-)advantage.

we still don't know what the asic will do to the market?  Will it make the first few people in the door with them into bit coin tycoons and the rest of us on bit welfare?

A lot of people will be disappointed, because their FPGAs and GPUs become unprofitable. However, they probably will keep mining, because (see first point above) they fall for the fallacy of speculating on the future price of bitcoin

[Evolvex]

I completely forgot about this thread - some excellent responses thanks all.

I actually ended up brought myself a secondhand ATI 5850 - currently getting about 300mh/s out of it, as supposed to the shite 44mh/s the nvidia was giving me - got it for about £75, so may actually even get my money back on it - if not, well never mind.

At the moment I'm looking at bitcoin as a cool new tech hobby, so I dont mind spending a bit of money on it.

Thanks for the replies folks.